George Walsh

George Walsh, formerly editor-in-chief of the general books division of the Macmillan Publishing Company, is a longtime journalist. He is the author of two books dealing with New York machine politics: Gentleman Jimmy Walker (1974), which chronicled the mayoralty during the 1920’s and 30’s, and Public Enemies (1980), which explored the connection between Mayor William O’Dwyer and Mobster Frank Costello in the 1940’s and 50’s. Most recently he is the author of Damage Them All You Can: Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia (2002) and the forthcoming Whip the Rebellion: Ulysses S. Grant’s Rise to Command (2004). His next book will be Ourselves Alone: When the Irish Ran New York–1876-1926. He lives in New York City.

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"Nineteen men in two distinct groups rode forward from the coalescing Confederate lines west of Chancellors-ville at about 9:00 p. m. on May 2, 1863. Only seven of the nineteen came back untouched, man or horse . . . Major General A.P. Hill escaped among the unscathed handful. Lieutenant General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, among those farthest from the flash point, was one of the five men killed or mortally wounded." So begins "The Smoothbore Volley That Doomed the Confederacy," the title chapter of prize-winning Civil War historian Robert K. Krick's latest book—an eclectic but compulsively readable collection of ten essays on Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, most of them focusing on such seminal episodes as Jackson's death, Lieutenant General James Longstreet's foot-dragging, and Major General Robert Rodes' relatively little-known heroics. The result is a brilliant tour de force.